Author: arndxt_xo
Compiled by: zhouzhou, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: Bitcoin continues to hit new historical highs, attracting massive institutional buying and driving a structural price increase. DeFi is accelerating the fusion of AMM and money markets, achieving dual asset utilization and improving capital efficiency. The cross-chain liquidity layer is becoming flatter, providing a smoother user experience. Stablecoin yield competition is intense, with institutional yield demand increasing. Meanwhile, points and identity verification airdrops are becoming new user growth strategies. The NFT market is weak, with funds flowing more towards Meme tokens with utility and reward mechanisms, and the ecosystem is gradually evolving.
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Altcoins seem dead, which is precisely the market's layout, demonstrating what the market does best: testing your conviction.
Altcoins continue to decline relative to Bitcoin, with Bitcoin's market dominance hovering near cycle highs, and market sentiment split between bored waiting and aggressive desire for low-cap coins. This is not a call that altcoin season will arrive tomorrow, so don't panic or blindly follow.
We are Still in a Bull Market
Bitcoin remains the protagonist. From ETF fund inflows to corporate fund allocations (GameStop, Trump Media, Strive), institutional confidence maintains Bitcoin's engine's fire.
This is also one reason for altcoins' weak performance, as Bitcoin is capturing liquidity. Before this narrative cools down, Ethereum and large-cap coins won't activate, let alone low-cap coins.
Altcoin season will begin after Bitcoin's dominance clearly declines—not while it's consolidating near cycle highs.
[The translation continues in the same manner for the entire text, maintaining the specified translations for specific terms.]Euler integrates Uniswap-v4 hooks into its lending engine, making LP tokens automatically become collateral—instant liquidity, no idle TVL. Hyperdrive allows Hyperliquid traders to leverage idle perpetual contract collateral with USDe or USDT0, and Malda's ZK-driven "borrow-as-you-go" layer turns cross-chain bridges into user experience details.
The underlying message is that any asset in smart contracts should serve two purposes: one for exposure and one for yield. This makes protocol users more sticky, with professional arbitrageurs compressing spreads and moving closer to real-world asset risks.
Liquidity Migration: The Quietly Rising Layer-2
Hyperliquid's TVL is climbing weekly, Base transaction volume is steadily growing in the Virtual ecosystem, and BNB chain DEX data is explosively increasing (Polyhedra's growth is mainly from bots washing trades to compete for ZK points).
Ethereum remains a capital flow hub, but these flows are directed towards: AAVE, UNI, LINK, PEPE, and other high-market-cap tokens. Retail farming sell-off season has shifted to sidechains, with the mainnet becoming the main street.
Meme Speed, Buybacks, and Beta Hunting
AAVE's governance-driven buyback makes the token an institutional favorite for accumulation, bringing the cleanest spot inflows since early spring. Meme has split into two factions: "rotating leaders" that institutions can enter (PEPE, VIRTUAL, SPX6900) and retail speculative "abandoned tickets" (DINNER, Fartcoin), until the music stops.
An interesting phenomenon: capital flows on Solana are more dispersed—MEW's Robinhood listing, JUP's continuous faucet, and potential stocks like BRETT and KAITO are attracting attention. If you're doing growth content, emphasize this fragmentation to differentiate from Ethereum's central narrative.
NFT: The Forgotten Frontier
Ordinal's heat has subsided, with trading volume flat, and "old whales" unable to support the floor price. Without new easing policies or a new narrative repositioning JPEGs as utility tools rather than show-off assets, funds that previously chased NFTs have shifted towards Memes with point systems.
